In a stunning move, the Canadian Border Services Agency issued a national policy late Friday afternoon ordering its officers to enter and wait outside anti-violence against women spaces to detain and deport women survivors of violence. Immigration Enforcement has also been given instructions to follow women survivors of violence on their way to and from spaces where they may seek support.
In passing this policy, Immigration Enforcement has declared that it supports abusers, and is willing to deport women to places of grave danger. This new policy forces survivors of abuse and violence to live with the added fear of deportation. Immigration Enforcement is sending a clear message to women survivors of violence that for undocumented women, no space is safe from the violence of deportation.
This policy is a major reversal of the victories won by grassroots organizing and must be opposed. Over the last two years, migrant women and anti-racist organizers with the Shelter | Sanctuary | Status Campaign, through rallies, protests, press conferences, delegations and actions, forced the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre to pass a policy in October 2010 that it would not enter, or wait outside any space serving survivors of violence to arrest undocumented women. The policy also stated that immigration enforcement would not call these spaces to verify the identity of women in these spaces.